Sophomores, juniors and seniors won’t receive their schedules until the first day of school.
By: Eileen Oldfield
A schedule switch might have Hillsborough High School students stuck in a conflict on the first day of school, since they will not receive their schedules until that day.
Prior to this year, students received schedules during the summer. However, this year, sophomores, juniors and seniors will receive their schedules during homeroom on the first day of school, Sept. 6. Freshman will receive their schedules during orientation on Aug. 28, and will receive a second copy of the schedule on the first day of school.
"This may not be an enormous hardship for students in the elementary schools and middle school, it causes much unnecessary stress and headache for those of us seeking to complete our graduation requirements in the high school," said senior Amelia Laranchuk in an e-mail. "As a student who is planning to take several AP courses, I am aware that these classes are often offered one or two periods of the school day, which can make a schedule full of them very difficult to work out."
Students’ specific concerns involve fitting the classes into their schedules, scheduling around programs like VoTech, missing class work because of scheduling problems, completing summer work, and fitting in classes to fill graduation requirements.
According to Hillary Charney, director of guidance, the administration and the guidance department decided to change the distribution process in May.
The change was posted on the guidance section of the high school Web site and a notice was mailed to students and parents over the summer.
"We wanted to have the summer to work out necessary changes and problems in the schedules," said Ms. Charney. "Because each student had the opportunity to meet with his/her counselor in selecting courses, we felt that the counselors would be able to work out any conflicts or problems before school started."
If counselors encounter problems with the schedules during the summer that cannot be fixed without student input, they will contact the students, said Ms. Charney.
The high school has 18 AP courses this year; of the 18, 10 have a single section.
"A student who ends up with schedule that does not work out on the first day of school will have to spend class time trying to sort it out," said Ms. Lavranchuk. "For those aforementioned APs, work begins on the first day. Any student who has problems with APs on their schedule will doubtless end up behind."
To fix schedule problems, student would fill out forms describing the conflict during homeroom. Homeroom teachers would return the forms to guidance, where counselors would make the necessary changes.
"Because we are working from the forms and not student-made appointments we are anticipating that we will be able to handle the problems quickly and efficiently," said Ms. Charney. "Counselors are cognizant of the concerns of the AP students and are working to ensure that each student is where he/she needs to be."